The Pilot Light

You and I both have an ironclad commitment to doing great work. Some of you have already done great work with me.

Would you like to see what my absolute BEST work is like?

I’m doing it again in a little while, and I want you with me.

I love you. I admire you. You are my Brilliant Clients.

I’ve been thinking long deep thoughts about you and how I could best serve you and rock your world.

Here’s what I want for you.

Can you imagine how fast and furiously and famously your business would grow if you reached your profit and transformational goals every month?

If you didn’t cycle endlessly between no flame (oh-god-oh-god-we’re-gonna-starve) and too much flame (I-am-never-gonna-get-all-this-work-done-ever-argh-argh)?

If you always, ALWAYS knew if you were on target – and if you weren’t on target you knew what to do about it?

If you could stretch and experiment and play and learn as much as you wanted, knowing that the pilot light of your business was always burning, ready for you to turn up the gas?

If, in short, you weren’t utterly magnificent in your business every now and again, but EVERY GODDAMN DAY?

Because it’s possible.

Catherine Caine inspires just by being in the periphery of your consciousness. She is the constant good-angel voice to any nasty-faced business doubts that I suffer. Her white-hot flaming insight cuts through the crap of marketing and operational superfluity; ditches any offering that smacks of inauthenticity or redundancy, and steers your efforts onto a shimmeringly certain and bound-for-greatness track.

The Pilot Light changed me in ways too numerous to count. It came to me at exactly the right time, and elevated my work and business to a level beyond which I thought myself capable. But more than that – it made me dig deep. I questioned EVERYTHING. My business emerged changed, and dammit – *I* emerged changed. Completely.

Catherine provokes your business brain into alignment first-off with her spectacular and unmatched resource, DIY Magnificence. Every TPL Mission thereafter goads you into making the grooves run deeper and deeper around your own personal LP of soulfully triumphant business marketing tunes.

Her counsel is less coaching than provocation. Catalysing. Revolutionising.

And if Catherine’s sheer awesome, life-changing insight weren’t enough – the phenomenal (and brilliantly wicked) group of like-minded entrepreneurs I met on this journey will remain my friends and accountability-buddies for life. I treasure these connections like gold. We had a time unparalleled in joy, and the journey I suspect, has only just begun…!

– Ming-Zhu Hiithepublicstudio.net

This is The Pilot Light.

In three months, you will transform your business from a flame in a strong wind – off and then sputtering on and then FOOM and then off again – into the constant regular blaze of a pilot light.

When you’ve got a pilot light, you can crank up the gas for a big blaze whenever you want to, and then dial it back when you’re low on gas, knowing that the flame won’t die out, that you still have enough light to see by.

I want you to have that.

I want you to have a business that allows you to keep on burning with calm certainty.

When I get turned on by a new band, it’s about far more than a catchy hook or a memorable riff. I need to feel like there is soul, and substance, and a deep sense that these musicians “get it.” They understand the need to transcend competence and move to the realm of art.

That is the same feeling that I have now about Catherine Caine and the Pilot Light program. I signed up to get great marketing direction and share-able savvy. That’s exactly what I got, and so much more.

What I gained, over and above the marketing acumen, is a cadre of like minded, scary smart, funny-as-your drunk-Uncle-Dave partners in the process of bringing my best self, and my best work, to the world.

If she is inviting you to the Pilot Light, it’s because she knows that you are good, and will become great.

Say yes.

And make sure to ask her how this Midwestern U.S. pastor bonded with her over porn. It’s a great story that my kids love to hear every Christmas.

Bill Todd Red Backpack Speaking and Coaching Myredbackpack.com

This is how it works…

You have the world’s most fantabulous marketing plan. Woot!

Oh, wait, that’s the end. But check it out for a sec… it’s going to be amazing to have a marketing plan that is 100% complete and dripping with juicy context: you’ll always know what you’re doing, when, with whom, and WHY you’re doing it.

One where every single bit of work is stuff you want to do, that you’d do for free, that feels meaningful and relevant and useful to you.

But first, we have to do a few other things…

You decide how you’re gonna be accountable, review, and re-aim.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, and in this case the enemy is… everything.

You are your enemy: we’ve all had times when we’ve contracted the Fuggedaboudit Blues and let our work trail off. So you’ll be finding ways to stay accountable.

Change is the enemy: you must adapt and overcome when it’s not producing the results you want.

Ignorance is the enemy: you need to regularly measure your progress with meaningful metrics so you know that all your hard work is paying off.

Oh, and of course in order to USE the metrics…

You choose the metrics you need to measure how your plan is doing.

I love looking at my Alexa ranking – it’s always impressive.

Of course it doesn’t mean diddly-squat in regards to how well my business is actually doing – if I thought my Alexa ranking was a meaningful metric I would have starved in the gutter months ago.

So what metrics DO matter? The ones that measure your action plan, of course.

Which means…

You develop the most hilarious, giddyfying and specific action plan ever.

Can you imagine how successful your business would be if you had a plan for every week, and even every DAY, on what marketing you’re going to do, when you’re gonna do it, and who it will be aimed at?

Can you imagine how much fun it would be if every single item on that list is work you LOVE doing?

How much marketing you would get done by spending time every day talking about stuff you love with people you adore, and getting them moving along the path from “Never heard of ’em” to “Seriously changed my life”?

Speaking of that path…

You plan the path for your bestest people to travel.

Momentum, baby. This isn’t the boring treadmill-to-bucks sales funnel crap, this is about TRANSFORMATION. (Can I get a “Hell yeah!”?)

You distil your work into one punchy-ass message.

People are busy and distracted and you need a tight message yadda yadda.

You know what? The biggest advantage to having a brief and punchy message isn’t for your clients… it’s for you.

When you can articulate the core of what you do in a few simple words you can avoid the “So what do YOU do?” panic-giggle-and-flail.

You can make decisions cleanly, sensibly and decisively. (Sexy.)

You always know what would be good for your business – stuff that fits with your message – and what wouldn’t be – everything else. (No matter how amazing.)

Also, you avoid putting ten thousand fiddly I-dunno-thought-it-was-a-good-idea frills on your work. Not that you suddenly have to sounds like Hemingway or anything, but your idea is so strong it can stand up by itself.

A message like that will grab the attention of your bestest people.

So naturally first we have to…

You articulate who would get the most VAVOOM from your work.

There are people who love your language for describing the world.
There are people who believe in the same values that you do.
There are people who won’t say, “Oh, that’s nice” about your work, but instead will run at it full-tilt through a field of flowers saying, “O come, run to me, hold me forever my love!”

These people will thank you for the opportunity to buy what you’re selling.
These people will squeeze every drop of the amazingness from your work and make you stagger away thinking, “When did I become a genius? Because clearly I am one.”
These people will tell strangers on the bus about why you’re amazing and they need your work right now.
These people will buy more than your quotas.

How many DO you need to sell, anyway?

You calculate how many you’ll need to sell to achieve your goals.

No back-of-the-envelope “If I sell more than… ten? I can pay the rent. I think.” fuzziness here, my darlings. No, we’re going for the Teutonic efficiency of knowing exactly how many of each of your products and services you need to sell in order to achieve your goals.

If you knew that you needed to sell exactly ten of your Thingummybob line, could you come up with a plan to do it? Mais oui, of course you could. It’s the “I need to sell… some… of something” vagueness that bites us in the kneecaps. We can’t plan for anything that nebulous, no matter how smart and well-groomed and generally amazing we are.

Thus, REAL NUMBERS are the name of the game, my sweetests.

Extra concrete numbers being brought in keep it real? TIME.

No matter what the Rolling Stones say, time is not on your side in business. And if you’re not careful, your business models can hit you where it hurts if you don’t factor the hours into it: like accidentally committing to doing 126 hours of consulting work every month because you didn’t tape out how long each client would need. (That’s 31.6 hours of one-on-one work each week, even before you think about admin, marketing, personal development, answering emails, lunch… yikes.)

Although, of course, in order to know how many to sell we have to know what they are…

You develop your range of fan-fucking-tastic products and services.

This is going to be the fun and totally frightening part, because Every. Single. Item. in your products and services listings are going to unashamedly ROCK.

Anything that is less than totally-amazingpants is out the door.

In its place: your best work, and only your best work.

Not just because I am desperately in love with you and I want only the absolute tippy-top BESTESTEST for you. (Although I am, and I do.)

Not just because your work will be a squajillion times more delightful and thrilling when you’re only doing amazing work.

But also, very simply, because creating a marketing plan for products and services that are TOTALLY KUNG-FU SHINY SHINY SWEETNESS is easy. Creating a marketing plan for “You know, pretty good” stuff requires an entire marketing team and is still a hard slog.

You create measurable goals in profit and changing the world.

Vague goals aren’t achievable goals. (There are many millionaires who aren’t happy because they wanted to make “enough” money. But does $1.2 million feel like enough? Does $5 million? Does anything?)

So specific money goals are important – they lead to meaningful action: if you want to make $5,975 in profit this month and you’ve only made $3,097 thus far… well, you know what you have to do. And you know when you’ve gotten there and can feel very proud of yourself.

But the other, super-duper-important, every-marketing-resource-seems-to-ignore-this-and-it-pisses-me-off part is not about money.

It’s about how your work is going to change the world.

It’s about having a Big Hairy Audiacious Goal that motivates you to strive, to innovate, to keep rocking it out when everything is hard.

And that goal needs to be measurable, too.

So you can know if your work is bringing you closer to it.
So you can remind yourself when you ask the inevitable, “Why am I doing this again?” questions.
And so you can have to world’s most killer celebration when you achieve it, when you have a VERY specific number to point to and say, “That! I did that. FUCK YES.”

And now we’re at the beginning.

Shall we cover that in the correct order this time?

Mission 1. You create specific, concrete, measurable goals in making money and making a difference.
Mission 2. You create a range of offerings that fit with your goals.
Mission 3. You create concrete goals on how many of each of your offerings you need to sell each month, and how long they’ll take to deliver.
Mission 4. You identify and describe the people who will most adore your work and what they want from you.
Mission 5. You craft your message to excite the pants off those bestest people.

Incandescence needs a rest. We’ll take a week off to let the fires bank a bit.

Mission 6. You create a path for them to follow as they build a relationship with you and your work.
Mission 7. You put all of these factors together into an action plan.
Mission 8. You develop metrics to measure your action plan and make sure it’s working.
Mission 9. You build in times to review your progress, to adjust, and to stay on track.
Mission 10. You have a concrete, specific, context-heavy, enjoyable and actionable marketing plan.

Ignition! Dancing and cake.

Does that sound amazing? Because it really, truly is.

The Pilot Light helped me understand exactly how much energy I have to put into my business, how much I want back out of it (in the forms of cash and joy) and how to get zackly THAT.

Somewhere between the amazing missions, the always-enlightening input from Catherine Caine and the effervescent, hilarious, mutually-evolutionary calls with the brilliant circle of rockstars she attracted, I got my world repeatedly rocked… not just in a business-building way, but ALSO in a heart-deepening way.

Now, if you don’t want that, don’t touch this thing with a 10-foot pole.

But if you do…

Michele Lisenbury Christensen workingwithpower.com

How are we going to do this work?

Before we begin, you’ll craft a plan on how you’ll squeeze the most juice from this course. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but the road to AWESOMENESS is paved with good action.

This course resource Insano-Gorgeous-Action-Team-Bonanza will go for 12 weeks. You’ll note that week 6 is a breather week, so that you can catch your breath, maybe catch up on a bit of previous work, get some much-needed rest. (Because we’re doing transformative work, and that shit is tiring, my darlings.)

And week 12 is the Columbo just-one-more-thing week, to make sure all your pieces fit, work, and know their choreography.

Each week there will be an audio from me – with a transcribed version for extra note-takey goodness – talking about what the exercise for the week is, how to rock it out, pitfalls to avoid, all that good stuff.

There will be editable electronic worksheets, the Most Amazing Spreadsheet of All Time (of All Time!) and other beautifully helpful resources – including a physical copy of these materials and DIY Magnificence, which we’ll be using throughout the course.

(DIY Magnificence will be sent to you as soon as you sign up, but the physical copy of The Pilot Light will arrive a bit later. Those first five weeks need to be covered in order, my sweet, with no temptation to skip ahead. And since I know that I could not possibly hold back from just peeking at the later missions, I am being stern on your behalf.)

We’ll have two groups of six, and each group will have one group session each week so you can talk about any problems, victorious realisations, fitting-the-pieces-together conundrums, and shake out any vaguenesses hiding in your plans. (Out you go, ninja vaguenesses!)

Of course, there will be online spaces to talk with the other almost-dozen equally fantastic members of the two groups. Remember how you’re all my Bestest People? Can you imagine a room full of people like you to confer with, build relationships with and discuss your concerns with? HELL YES.

(I mean, I thought it would be astonishing, and even I was surprised. Seriously. I don’t have words for how amazing you are together.)

When I first contacted Catherine considering enrolling in the Pilot Light, I felt that I needed something and someone to help me commit my business to being 100% awesome, and also a giant proverbial kick up the arse. While I had all the parts of my business up and running, I was suffering from a lack of both cash and joy along with very, very limited general enthusiasm in my day to day operations. I hoped that doing the course would open a big shiny door for me, and I’d skip to my desk each day, finally truly happy to be doing my work.

What became clear to me as I worked on my business in both concrete terms- numbers, time, profits, plans, and in more abstract ways- looking at my intrinsic motivations, likes, dislikes, energy levels etc, was that the gulf I’ve been trying so hard to bridge was getting wider and wider. The more I looked for solutions, the harder it became to nail down the exact path I felt that I should follow. Catherine has an amazing ability to look at a situation and get exactly to the point in question. She is insightful beyond belief and exceptional at asking some really tough questions (in a wonderful way) to provoke some crazily intense thought.

Over a few weeks, I had an amazing breakthrough that I really never anticipated. I was struggling so much with my path simply because I was on the wrong one, with the wrong motivations. I had created a good business, but not a good business for me. I was not doing my “best work” I was just working, and that was feeling like a job that I had created for myself without paying any attention to who I am. All of a sudden, as if from nowhere, I worked out what it is that I should be doing so that my whole being lights up with excitement at the thought of it.

Imagine, a business built on solid foundations suited perfectly to you, doing the work that is vitally important for you and the world. This was a notion that I just couldn’t wrap around my existing business, no matter how much I tried to twist and turn it. I went back and redid the exercises of the Pilot Light, this time for my new idea. Amazingly, second time around it was easy, almost effortless. The struggle and agony that I’d associated with business planning simply didn’t exist this time around. I found my work, my calling, my “thing” and I am so excited to start down this new path. I see both cash and joy in my future, and the way there actually looks like a whole lot of fun! I can’t imagine that I would have got to this point on my own, I am so unbelievably delighted that I worked with the fabulous Catherine and the amazing group of fellow Pilot Lighters (Lightees?), this experience really did kick ass!

Helen, PintSized Studio

Plus you’ll have an extra three SIX hours of one-on-one time with me during the course that you can use as you see fit: 30 minutes every week, or saved in the piggybank for the weeks that feel tricksy to you… whatever you need. (And yes, you can piggybank the whole lot for one full day of insanity, if you like. I think it’s crazy, but I’m rather fond of crazy.)

You can even save one of those hours for after the 12 weeks is finished, for all the clarity explosions that will occur after we’re done. Because this amazingness is just the beginning, sweetest of sweets.

And there are a few extra-special bonuses.

You already saw, smart creature that you are, that a copy of DIY Magnificence is included.

Any product I create during the three months we work together? You get a free copy. (“Why, Catherine?” you ask. Mostly because working with this smaller group allows me to free up more creative time to create products in, and I couldn’t do that if not for you. Also, I just like giving you presents.)

Forever after, you will receive the super-secret VIP rate for my offerings – an eternal 5% discount, no matter what happens.

And when I get to the point – and it IS coming – that I hire someone else to deal with my email? You’ll have the not-published-anywhere email address that I will check personally.

You are my darling, my hero and my inspiration, and I want to see you with a marketing plan that truly serves your bank account and your soul.

I came to Catherine and The Pilot Light having just launched a new site. With monthly commitments to meet and no real clarity about how best to share the new stuff with the world, I was feeling overwhelmed and more than just a little bit under pressure. I’d look for ideas and find myself bombarded and swayed by messages from this person and that person about the best way to market my business.

But what I’d also come to realise was that I didn’t need ‘the best way’, I needed the way that was best for me. And that’s what I got from Catherine (and a whole lot more that I didn’t bargain on!)

About halfway through the pilot light, I abandoned the recently launched new site in favour of doing the work I knew all along I was here to do (but until that moment, had never dared believe were possible.) To quote myself at the time ‘I can’t quite believe I get to do this. Signing up got the pilot light was the best decision, EVER!

El Edwards
TheItchySoul.com

When does it begin?

I’m already recruiting for the next time I run this (date TBA), because I won’t accept anyone who isn’t ridiculously, astonishingly fantastic.

Like you.

Like Genna. (Oh please watch this, it’s only 2 minutes and it is wonderfabulous.)

How much does it cost?

It costs $2,497 in one payment, or you can pay $547 for 5 months.

I am reducing the price of The Pilot Light from $2497 to $2200. I have decided to reduce my profit so we can help out more people, while still making enough to make it worth it for me.

Am I open to payment plans? You bet your ass I am. I know that cashflow might be tight for you right now, while you build the kind of business that you deeply desire. If you’re deeply, truly committed to this resource, then we will find a way to make it work that blesses us both.

Of course, I would like to reward anyone who can pay the whole amount upfront, so if you were to do that, it would be reduced to one payment of $1950for the full course. Schweet!

What I have also decided to do is now give people the option to do TPL without the one-on-one coaching time with me. There will still be the option of course to buy this time during the 12 weeks (at a discounted rate) if you feel that you need it. Other than that, everything else will be the same.

The course without the individual coaching time will be $1200 with a payment plan, or (because everyone loves a good incentive!) a one-off payment of $950.

(Hey, if you’re reading this sales page for the fifth or sixth or tenth time, just go ahead and put your deets in that form right there. We clearly need to have a wee chat about what’s going on in your biz and what you’re needing.)

Join me in the most profound revolution in your business that I can conjure.

This is my best work, and I want you to have it.

Rock on,
Catherine

Practicalities for the oddball biz.

You do things differently.

Which is AWESOME.

But it also means that from your perspective, most business and marketing resources suck diseased moose wang.